


The Dogs of Henrietta

by bpdcerberus



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Backstory, Child Abuse, Friendship, M/M, Multi, Other, Trans Character, deep friendship, ft. maggie's 'depending on where you began the story' trope, ftm character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:24:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bpdcerberus/pseuds/bpdcerberus
Summary: Depending on where you began the story, it was about the dogs of Henrietta. A group of five messed up boys with pasts too terrible to forget without the help of drugs, alcohol and adrenaline. This is their origin story. They weren't always this way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Abuse, murder, drugs, alcohol, dysphoria, bullying, LGBT+ related slurs (mostly dy*e and tr*nny), vomiting, child death

Depending on where you began the story, it was about Joseph Kavinsky.

His mob-boss father had never been kind to him or his mother and brother, and his home had never really felt like home. At a relatively young age, he found himself roaming the streets of Hoboken in the afternoons after school. He didn't want to go back to the house. Most of the time he would pick up his brother from school and take him to the park, where the mothers would take their children somewhere else. Lots of people in this town were afraid of his father, including Joseph himself. Joseph's little brother, Xavier, never minded the people leaving the park. It meant he had the whole park to himself. Everyone in Joseph's family seemed to like being alone except for him.

On days that he didn't take Xavier to the park, he would go to the gas station bathrooms and change out of the skirt and blouse his school uniform required and into cargo shorts and a tank top. He'd shed the outer shell of Natavia Kavinsky and become Joseph. He would sigh, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He wished his hair was shorter. At the moment, his raven-black hair was in a french braid that reached 3/4 of the way down his back. He hated it. He produced a beanie hat from his bag and tucked his hair under it, then smiled at his reflection.

The first time Joseph woke with something in his hands, he was amazed and confused. He had dreamed of a forest, and in the forest was a flower like he hadnt seen before. It was golden yellow and emitted a faint glow. It was like the sun in the version of a flower. The stem was yellow-green and fuzzy. Joseph put it in a vase on his windowsill. He came home one afternoon, realizing he forgot to water it the past two days and ran to his room to see if it was alright. It was perfect as ever, beautiful and shining like the sun. Even when the water was gone, the flower remained. It didn't wilt or die, and it's will to live amazed Joseph. He decided to be just like that flower.

When middle-school came around, Joseph found himself staring at his chest in the mirror. It wasn't supposed to be like this. All.. Round. He hated it. He wanted to take his fathers knife - the big one he kept in his office, not the small one - and chop the lumps of flesh off. He hated them. He hated his body. On the first day of school, his classmates made it clear that they hated _him_ , calling him names like dyke and tranny. Joseph didn't care. He didn't even know what those meant. The only person that never called him names was Aleksander Prokopenko. Joseph had made a mental note to try to be his friend. Once the kids figured out who he was, they immediately stepped off. Completely. No one talked to him. Sometimes Joseph was happy his father was a terrible, terrible man.

Then in 6th grade, he visited the hospital for the first time. He had broken his ribs on accident, having been making his chest flat with an ace bandage from the first aid kit. He didn't look up when his family came into the hospital room. "Natavia. The doctor says you were wrapping your chest." His mother said in Bulgarian, sitting on the hospital bed. Joseph nodded. His father made a noise that sounded like he was looking at a food he didn't like.

'Disgusted,' Joseph thought, 'with me.'

"Do you feel like a boy?" His mother asked quietly, voice full of kind concern. Joseph blinked. He hadn't thought of it like that before. He thought for a moment. "Yes. I'm.. I'm a boy." It felt so right to say. It felt so right and felt so real. To Joseph's father, it was idiocy. "Don't be an imbecile, you're a girl." His mother looked like she wanted to say something, but was too afraid. Joseph knew the look, her carefully done eyebrows drawn in while she looked away from her husband.

Not much had gotten much better after the hospital visit. When his father wasn't around, his mom called Joseph her son, and used the right pronouns, which was good. She even helped him decide on Joseph as his new name. His real name. But his father was a different story. The abuse - both physical and verbal - increased in frequency and intensity. Usually Joseph got away with nothing but an angry red hand-print on his face and hurt self esteem, but now it was throwing things, pushing him down, calling him worse things than the kids at school called him and bloody noses. The pain increased for his mother as well when his father found out that she had encouraged Joseph by calling him a he. Luckily, Timotei Kavinsky left Xavier alone.

Earlier that week, Joseph had dreamed of rain. It was sifting through the trees in the forest he always dreamed of, soaking his hair and his clothes.. When he woke up, his entire bed and entire body were soaked with musty smelling water. He blinked, wiping his wet hair away from his face. Josephs face broke into a smile, and he laughed. He hadn't laughed in a long time, especially since the hospital visit.  _"I am a dreamer,"_ he thought. 

 

Things continued like that for a long 2 years. Eventually, Joseph was able to buy himself a chest binder safely. His mother had long since given up on living and was now a zombie with a white-dusted nose from messily snorting cocaine. Joseph and Xavier were alone in this world. Joseph was now 14, and Xavier was now 10. Joseph walked Xavier to school every morning before going to his own classes. The mundane repetition of routine made Joseph feel like a caged tiger, ready to strike. At this point, he was just starting high school. By this time, Joseph had worked on being intimidating and scary an could now command the attention of a room by walking into it. This power was increased tenfold once the rumor about Joseph's father being a mobster spread. Joseph was just thankful this school didnt have uniforms.

No one sat near Joseph at lunch, nor in his first 3 classes. Fifth period finally rolled around, during which Joseph had English. He was terrible at English. He could speak it fairly well, since his parents raised him to be bilingual, but his heart spoke in Bulgarian. 

Joseph sat in the middle row all the way to the back of the class. The desks were in pairs of two. Joseph was always a pair of one. That was the day he formally met Aleksander Prokopenko.

One afternoon after school, just as Joseph was getting home, his father was waiting for him by the door. Joseph looked at his father's hand, which was dangling by his side. Timotei's meaty fingers were wrapped around the fuzzy stem of Joseph's dream flower.

"Natavia." His father's voice was a smoker's growl. His beer-heavy voice matched well with his beer-belly. "What is this. I found it in your room." Timotei held up the flower for Joseph to see. Anger burned in Joseph. His father snooped in his room, and he was such an uncaring prick the he asked his son about an odd flower instead of the drugs he had hidden under his bed.

"It's a flower." Joseph stated, voice plain. "I found it." He didn't specify where, so he technically wasn't lying.

His father mocked him " _'It's a flower-'_ " his father's voice rose like a tidal wave. "I KNOW WHAT A FUCKING FLOWER IS, NATAVIA. THIS IS NOT A FLOWER."

Joseph's anger exploded. "THEN WHY'D YOU FUCKING A-"

His outburst was cut short with a blow from his father. Timotei hit him so hard his ears rung and he struggled to not fall over. His legs failed him and he fell sideways, colliding with the floor. His hip landed first, then his head connected with the foyer room's tile and his vision blurred. Joseph wasn't positive if it was from tears or from the blow to his head. He hoped it was the latter. Timotei Kavinsky did not tolerate crying.

Joseph's father's voice was low and furious. "You do not raise your voice in my house, you pussy-eating _dyke_."

The boy on the floor watched through blurred vision as his father walked into the living room and dropped the flower in the fire. The flower was so headstrong that it survived without proper nutrients, with no roots or water, but it quickly perished to the flames darting from the wood log. For the past four years, Joseph looked to the flower for hope and a will to do _something_ with his life other than end it. All of that will to live left him as he saw the last petal burn in the fireplace. Joseph couldn't help comparing the angry flames to the angry man standing over them. It was that moment he knew he was also doomed to burn.

That night, he had taken his younger brother and himself to the Prokopenko household, asking to stay the night. Aleksander nursed Joseph's head, which had begun bleeding after it hit the tile. The youngest Prokopenko didn't ask what had happened. He didn't need to.

Joseph and Xavier finally returned to the Kavinsky household around a week afterwards. The Prokopenkos were on vacation to their summer home in Henrietta, Virginia. Joseph felt like an extinguished flame, empty and cold. Something had shifted, he could feel it. His chest felt hollow as he dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, sending Xavier up to his room and sitting on the stairs. He knew Timotei would want to punish Joseph for leaving, and he wasn't going to let him touch Xavier.

The heavy footsteps of Timotei Kavinsky made Joseph's stomach turn to ice, heart dropping with each _thump_. Timotei appeared from around the corner, eyes narrowed at Joseph.

"Natavia."

"Father." Joseph stood, returning the facial expression to his father.

"Where had you gone? I was worried." Timotei didn't seem happy to see Joseph, despite his words.

"None of you business." The lie from the man he used to call his father seared his skin like the fire his dream flower succumbed to. "Let me get one thing straight. You are not to so much as _touch_ Xavier. You want to hurt someone, take your anger out, whatever, you take it out on me. Not him." Joseph's face was blank. Timotei looked at Joseph for a moment, a standoff filled with hate. Suddenly, Timotei began to laugh. It was a laugh that came from his belly, loud and booming as if he had heard the single funniest joke in existence. Joseph swallowed down his fear, only for it to ricochet around his stomach. The eldest Kavinsky's laugh did not die down.

It stopped all at once.

One moment he was laughing, the next there was not a scrap of humor on his face. He begun walking towards Joseph, only for the teenage by to back up a step. Timotei did not stop, shoving Joseph out of the way. 'Out of the way', in this case, meant down the stairs. Joseph fell flat on his back, head once again hitting the floor. He sat in shock for a moment, mind blank. As he tried to gather himself, he heard a door open. His mind screamed _'No'_ , but he wasn't sure if it was out loud or not. His thoughts swam with confusion and anger and hate, but two words stuck out from the calamity. 'Not him.' Joseph thought, struggling to sit up.

His vision was just clearing as he heard a gunshot from upstairs.

_'No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.'_

His mind raced as he struggled to his feet, running upstairs. Xavier's door was open, but blocked by a 6 foot tall figure with an outrageous beer belly. It smelled like gunpowder, Joseph realized. He saw the gun in his fathers hand and looked passed his silhouette into the room. A small figure lay on the floor with a bullethole right between his eyes. Joseph gagged, his stomach threatening to turn out its contents. His father hadn't seemed to notice him.

As quietly as he could, he crept back down the stairs and into the kitchen, grabbing the knife his mother used to chop vegetables with. Joseph walked back towards the stairs with the knife hidden behind his leg. His stomach still felt like an angry ocean threatening to capsize the boat called Lunch. Timotei was just walking down the stairs. He looked at Joseph standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

"What have I told you about crying?" Timotei hissed, the tiniest of smirks on his face.

That's when Joseph exploded forwards, lashing out with the knife and just barely slicing a cut across Timotei;s chest. It was a poorly placed blow and wasnt deep, but it was enough to knock him off-guard. Joseph grabbed for the gun while his father stumbled, grabbing it away from him and backing up. He pointed the gun at the bleeding man and shot him 5 times in the chest, hand shaking and eyes wet. After a moment of watching the bleeding body for signs of life, he dropped his hand to his sides, gun falling to the ground.

He then went to collect his mother and took his fathers car keys.

He took off down the interstate towards Henrietta, Virginia and never looked back.


End file.
